Gamers: Dorkness Rising

A group of nerds, and proudly so, get together once a week to role play in an imaginary world run by the Dungeon Master, Tyler Cole. Cole, 19 years old, has been DMing (running campaigns as a Dungeon Master) for 6 years. The others in the group include Daniel Mettie, 23 years old and has been playing for 8 years; Charles Tryon, 37 years old and has been playing for about 20 years; and Ronnie Rodriguez, 24 years old and has just started playing a month ago.

In the world, the players are awoken with no memories in a city surrounded by walls of stone and walls of monsters. There is a king who rules by withholding the knowledge of everyone’s memories in books, and a hunter’s guild that pays for various tasks such as retrieval of items and the eradication of the beasts outside.

Mettie takes the role of a bard, often playing music in battle to help the others do better; Tryon is a wizard who thinks more about setting things on fire than the greater good for the team; Rodriguez is the fearless fighter, striking foes down with almost every swing of his blade. Cole plays everyone else in their world, from the beasts to the king to the civilians of the towns.

In their most recent session, the group was sent to retrieve a particular necklace from the Castle. Hopping from roof to roof, and scaling from wall to wall. The three musketeers of sorts roll d20s (20 sided dice) to try and pass a stealth and climb check, afterall breaking into the king’s castle is a pretty serious offense and the guards are always patrolling the city. Mettie fails both of these checks on several tries (frame 3) and is forced to run around buildings and come up with another plan to catch up with Rodriguez after Tryon falls from one of the rooftops (Frame 4).

After reaching the castle and climbing through a window they are confronted and informed that they had been set up and it was all a trap. Rodriguez also had a surprise waiting for him when it was revealed that the necklace’s owner was his mother, but he still couldn’t remember his past. They returned home and after a good night’s rest Rodriguez visits the clothing shop to see his special girl. Unfortunately Tryon decided to disrupt his happiness and paid several women and even a little boy to tell lies of lust to the girl, and now has to figure out who to prove his innocence in love (Frame 5).

Tryon creates a marker for his character on the dungeon map. “I’m going to name my marker ‘ME’ again,” says Tryon.

Rodriguez fidgets with his dice and makes a tower, unfortunately now he has to roll his dice.

The party contemplates what to do next, should they hunt for monsters or go figure out why they were set up?

The DM explains more story, the party members are held to the ground while they listen to a NPC (Non Playable Character) named Kurando. “You are about to make a big mistake,” Cole says while in character.

Mettie gives reasons for why they could’ve been set up. Is he right? “Maybe he doesn’t like us,” Rodriguez jokes.


Daniel Mettie plans a route of escape after failing his stealth and climb checks.

The third time isn't the charm for Mettie, after failing three times in a row. The team continues on without him as he tries to eventually catch up. Cole exclaims, "How do you fail 3 stealth checks in a row and still not get caught?"

Mettie fakes a Purple Bolt (when you roll all of the dice onto the table and do that much damage to a character). "If it were real that character would be dead."

Cole creates what appears to be a simple dungeon, but is it?

Rodriguez ponders the ways to win Kendall back after Tryon starts horrible rumors. "What is your problem with my character?" Rodriguez questions Tryon. "He just doesn't like people," Cole mentions.